So there you are, going to visit Aunty Alice, a long train journey with you and your buddy thinking, "if only we could get in a couple of wargames on the way"
And then you notice the dimensions of the table, "Hmm, 2 and a half feet deep by just over two foot wide. Perfect for this card game we got, the wargamey thing"
You couldn't pull out your WAB or Armati army for a fight in such a small area but "Battleground: Fantasy Warfare" has been designed for small area tabletop wargaming, using cards with the top down views of the units instead of loads of little painted metal men. At present, there are three fantasy armies (Men, Undead and Orcs) with two more on the way in 2006.
The game plays as an element based wargame. Your cards are discrete stands of units, though they have damage tracks on them you can mark off. These tracks go from green to yellow and then red indicating a loss of effectiveness as your troops take casualties. The longer the track the more a unit can soak up damage. On the flip side is a picture of your unit's troops, plus blurb and any special rules.
Set up is as for a figure set of wargames, which this card game seeks to emulate. The rules of combat are fairly straightforward and play well, and a good command method limits the ability of omniscient generals by having a system of standing order issued to troops that forces care in changing orders or chopping and changing your mind. You can use any command points you aren't using in a turn to buy cards that can be used to modify combat, whether in attack or defence, though using some of these cards may involve spending precious command points.
Distances on the battlefield are in multiples of the edges or lengths of the cards but you are still better off with a measuring tape.
There are enough variants of troop types to make choice of army interesting and for armies constructed from the same sides to have a different feel depending on those choices. The ever-popular points cost system is used but there are no restrictions on what you can buy except for the cards you own and the points cost you and your opponent agree upon.
Each starter deck comes with enough cards to have two small armies of the same faction so it doesn't take much to have a shot of this game, the reinforcement decks have enough extra cards to have big enough armies for most purposes, and include two new unit types for each faction).
Since the decks come in standard card boxes they are printed in the same small format collectable card games rules come in, but you can download them from here for a more readable format. The only downside to the cards, which are nice and colourful, is that there is nothing to instantly identify cards as belonging to one faction over another but apart from that the printing is nice and crisp and readable, which is important when your eyes are knackered like mine.
The advanced rules that come in the reinforcement decks come with terrain rules but there are no cards or fold outs for terrain, though there is a suporting Yahoo Group that has some terrain pieces for printing out in its files section. The terrain rules add more modifiers and if you are using these then a reference sheet of all the modifiers looks like something worth having. The quick reference card in the starter deck only cover some of the simpler situations.
If playing bigger armies I might expand the battlefield as it would get cramped, but this is a truism for any wargame. The cards move like any element based game so there is no loss of "wargame" feel in playing these rules.
So far, special abilities of the troops and command cards aside the game doesn't feature any "magic" which I don't think is missed in early games, as it would probaly complicate matters, but which may make an appearance later. I know that a Siege supplement is planned.
This is a simple, enjoyable game that manages to have all the facets of a decent wargame, command, effectiveness of troops in different situations and morale all in a simple package. The factions have different feels to them due to the nature of their troops, their special rules and the different mix of types each has. It is incredibly easy to carry and although it has a few flaws in the presentation of the rules they are more than outweighed by the fun in the game.
Review Summary